The place where Michael Ruffin asks questions, raises issues, makes observations and seeks help in trying to figure it all out so that together we can maybe, just maybe, do something about it.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Must Read

Everyone in the Church should read Brennan Manning's book The Signature of Jesus (Multnomah, 1988). Particularly pertinent for those in the church circles within which I run is chapter 10, "The Discipline of the Secret," which is presented as "An open letter to American Christians." Here are some of Manning's powerful words:

I am deeply disturbed by what I can only call in our Christian culture the idolatry of the Scriptures. For many Christians, the Bible is not a pointer to God but God himself. In a word--bibliolatry. God cannot be confined within the covers of a leather-bound book. I develop a nasty rash around people who speak as if mere scrutiny of its pages will reveal precisely how God thinks and precisely what God wants.

The four Gospels are the key to knowing Jesus. But conversely, Jesus is the key to knowing the meaning of the gospel--and of the Bible as a whole. Instead of remaining content with the bare letter, we should pass on to the more profound mysteries that are available only through intimate and heartfelt knowledge of the person of Jesus.

2 comments:

Manning always writes with real passion and clarity. Imagine the untold harm and irreparable damage that might have been avoided if Southern Baptist folk had heeded his words. It is the devil's most cunning deception, to substitute the book for the Being, the page for the Person.

Thanks for walking with me

Here at On the Jericho Road I hope to engage in conversations about the places where real faith meets real life. The controlling symbol for the work I will do on the blog comes from the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man who was beaten and left for dead beside the road to Jericho was a human being whose situation created a crisis not only for him but also for those folks who saw him there. What would they do? What should they do? We are confronted with similar situations all the time. How does our faith inform our thought processes, our decision making, and our action taking? I want us to think about confronting with real faith those real situations that come up in real life. I hope that our thinking leads us to appropriate action. Thanks for joining in the conversation.

The views expressed on this blog are mine and do not reflect those of the institutions with which I work.